Dear husband

Dear husband.

You had felt light-headed. You had told me you were tired.

We were fighting on my birthday when your chest began to ache. I just wanted more attention; I didn’t expect what was at stake.

Our two young children played around us in the hallway to the front door, not knowing the unwitting alarm in my tone as I dialled 000. The neighbours showed their concern for us as you drove away with cords clipped to your chest, and a drip in your arm.

The specialist had said it ‘may’ be Brugada syndrome, but he was confident that that was rare. He said he had completed the flecainide challenge on over forty patients, only two showing Brugada. He was so confident, that he refused to tell us what it was.

At first.

Another self-assured doctor drilled his opinion that your chest pain was radiating from some lulling anxiety in your life, as a father of two.

I was heavily pregnant with our third baby when you had your first heart attack. They often looked to me and justified their diagnosis with stress while consuming the image of a raging pregnant woman at home. I felt a burden as I saw several other specialists pour into the room before you began more perilous tests that following day.

Each one lessening the easier excuses. Each one a concern.

A small tube was inserted into your groind, travelling up to your heart to investigate the arteries inside. The doctors spoke of the test and its risks, which also spoke of the significance of what could be wrong with you.

A tough man, who worked at a plumbing supplies store, hands full of muscle, calves of steel. You could lug a hundred kilograms to building sites on a regular basis.

Balance large pluming pipes on your broad, strong shoulders.

But in the hospital bed, with your bare chest showing through your hospital gown to the group of doctors rushing you away, I saw the tears well up in your eyes.

Days later, when I took you home, everything had changed. You had Brugada syndrome, which the doctor asked me not to search online.

In which I immediately did.

“Widow maker” was the long term nickname this syndrome of the heart related to. I read the words, as his wife, with a tussling baby growing deep inside my stomach. Two small children of ours playing in the loungeroom.

One of our sons has your nose. It had always had a slight upturn that was obvious from birth. Our eldest has your intelligence for maths, counting at a young age. Math extraordinaire by the time he went to school. Still, modest like you too.

I began to wonder where you could have sudden cardiac arrest. Would it be tonight? Would I be soundly sleeping, dreaming of something glorious, while my husband gasped his last breath?

You see, I sleep like a rock. How could I know?

I searched for videos online to learn CPR. What if I wasn’t strong enough? What if I performed it wrong?

The doctor, somehow, seemed less motivated to help us. The public healthcare system in Australia impending its strict prerequisites for any surgery. This was a rare condition first discovered in 1991.

Regardless of the stress, my mind wandered to monotonous thoughts constantly.

I really didn’t like to drive to the city. If you were gone, what would I do?

Who would fix our car? Who would teach me how to use the tools in our house, or about gardening, or how to replace the taps in the kitchen? Who would tell me whether penguins had knees?

My husband, you, were a wealth of knowledge, useful and useless.

Without you, I felt like half a person.

Without you, I didn’t feel like the strong independent woman I thought I was. Not because I couldn’t do anything on my own, but because I didn’t want to. I loved having a partner by my side. I loved to build memories with you.

What if I couldn’t remember what colour our first car was when I’m an old lady?

What if the kids needed something from you that they couldn’t get from me?

What about Father’s Day? What about Christmas?

I had grown up without my father, and I had never coped well.

Would they pine for their father like I did mine? Would they cry late at night, trying to remember what your skin smelt like, what you sounded like, laughed like?

When our kids were grown, we wanted to live together in a quiet and calm existence. We wanted to keep the rooms free just in case they needed us. We wanted to box-up all of their old toys and keep them stored so that they could come home and show their own kids.

My second son had a sloth toy that he dragged everywhere. I imagined a tattered ‘slothy’ in the future, and my adult sons face reminiscing the great life we had provided him.

Then, one day, we would sell our big family home and renovate a big old barn on some land. It would be a deep red with light-cream beams. We had planned to have it changed to our custom needs. We wanted an open-plan living space with stairs up to our bedroom, overlooking below.

My husband wanted to have an industrial-style kitchen, while I would soften the design with my love for carpeted matts and lovely little tea towels.

The whole area insulated for our arthritis we were sure to have. We would have a big TV and a comfy couch. We would lay by each other and watch survival shows, telling them how we could do it better while we ate terribly fatty snacks.

Our future had been set, reset, and edited through many conversations. We’re still young, but when we married at twenty-three our world became chaos quickly. Our ages seemed deceiving with all the growth we had accomplished throughout our life together.

Our first son was wild, our second a bandage to the settling whirlwind afterward. Our third a wish for adding a little girl to the mix. We had felt blessed to be granted with so much, even with so little to our names financially.

But what is being ‘blessed’, without some laughter from God above?

Now I look to you while you sleep and watch the pattern of your chest rising as the air flows through. Sometimes, while you are working, I forget. I think about the work I have to do and wonder when we will next go for a date.

Human, I still want for what others have.

Another sick day will set us back as you struggle to get up in the morning, your heart running marathons in your slumber.

Sometimes I want to hate you for holding me back, but mostly, I want to hate me for not fixing what can’t be fixed.

For now, I try to remember your thick dark hair, your big white smile, and every moment you made me proud to be the person you married.

I will remember that one time after grocery shopping where you ran across the road to help an old man pick up a shopping bag that fell from his grip.

I’ll remember you hoisting our two young boys into the air and running through the house, enticing screams and giggles from them both. I’ll remember our daughter running to the front door when you arrive home, yelling “Da!”.

But hopefully, maybe, I won’t have to remember, because you will still be here with me.

Dear husband, I hope we make it to the barn.